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Here, Kitty Kitty
How Ruth Jones has used her business to challenge river dumping
by Shannon Carson
In addition to landfills and incinerators, recycling drop-off
points and clothing donation spots, a lot of our trash
ends up in rivers, including the Delaware River. Personally
I find the practice of leaving cans, tires, safes, and
cars on the riverbank abhorrent, but I can't say I do
anything to change it. Ruth Jones of Kittatinny Canoes
and the nearly 300 volunteers who work with her, on the
other hand, can pride themselves on having removed literally
tons of trash from the Delaware.
But none of them do it for pride. Ruth Jones, featured
in GreenTreks' On Location: Delaware River documentary,
sees it as her personal responsibility. She and her son
David run Kittatinny Canoes, a company that rents canoes,
kayaks, and the like to families and school and church
groups eager to catch some gorgeous views in the midst
of their water fights. For fourteen years now the company
has sponsored a three-day cleanup of the river.
Though Kittatinny does receive some donations from local
vendors, the company bears the overwhelming brunt of the
$30,000 cost. At a time when few small companies can afford
such endeavors, and even fewer large companies take them
on unless it is to combat more significant misdeeds (i.e.,
Philip Morris' smoking prevention and cessation programs),
Kittatinny is quite unique.
Lessons Learned
Having done this fourteen years in a row ("You have to
do it every year," Ruth says. "You can't skip a year.
It's gonna get ahead of you."), you can bet Ruth has learned
some lessons in community organizing. The first year,
for example, too much of the staff joined the trash removers
on the river; there weren't enough of them left behind
to bus volunteers around, serve food, and tend to the
canoe business-as-usual, which continues throughout the
cleanup.
The second year, Kittatinny did a series of press releases,
requesting volunteers, but attracted too many "freeloaders" — which
you can very well imagine, since the river clean up provides
for breakfast, barbeque chicken, and plenty of camaraderie.
Sometimes adding a twist to a project works, like when
David started donning and distributing scuba gear so volunteers
could clean the river bottom. Another lesson, learned
over time, is that in order to do a thorough cleanup job,
groups need to be able to concentrate on a smaller stretch
of river; overambition, while honorable, yields less impact.
Some Numbers
But some might call the whole project "overambitious,"
so I should be careful about labeling: since 1990, the
River Cleanup has removed 232.12 tons of trash from a
seventy-mile stretch of the Delaware River (touching three
states, starting with Ten Mile River located eight miles
north of Barryville, New York and ending with the Delaware
Water Gap on the New Jersey side). That includes over
6400 tires and over 7200 pounds of cans.
Ruth Jones herself paddles an impressive amount, often
picking up trash along the way: at 71 years old, this
year she tacked another three miles onto her former record
of 414 miles (that's 1.5 times the length of the entire
Delaware River!). The cleanup has drawn as many as 1000
volunteers, and though the counts were down to 297 in
July 2003, devoted volunteers return year after year.
But numbers only convey so much. Ruth tells me about a
noteworthy moment the day before when she watched a single
squirrel swim across the river: "The way the squirrel
moves along, its tail floats, the tail never gets wet,"
she says. Though she devotes her life to a river, she
has the wisdom and perspective of an ocean.
Everyone's Doing It
If you don't already feel enough peer pressure in your
life, I've got some more to dish out. I ask Ruth if the
volunteers are all senior citizens, or all a collection
of Boy Scout troops, but she says no, "we've got people
from all walks of life. Seniors, people in their forties
and fifties, church youth groups." Everyone has a stake
in its quality, so everyone takes part in preserving its
well-being. Makes sense.
The
Big Picture
Despite the tremendous logistics and physical energy that
Ruth and Kittatinny staff put into the river through the
overall business and the cleanup, it may still all seem
like small beans to you; it's true, Kittatinny is the
only canoe company that organizes a cleanup effort like
this. But after receiving some publicity and winning a
few Take Pride in America contests for the project, other
people are recognizing just what a good idea it all is.
After all, our rivers won't be any fun at all if they're
too trashed to boat through.
As a direct result of Kittatinny's Delaware River Cleanup,
American Outdoors, an international organization that
represents adventure travel outfitters, tour companies
and outdoor educators, has named its own National
River Cleanup Week. Small efforts breed larger movements.
We need motivation to keep up with ourselves and the world
sometimes. "Every year it gets better and better," Ruth
informs me, which is oh so important to hear.
Visit Kittatinny Canoes online for more information.
For one account of the cleanup, read one community paper's:
"Canoeists
Comb Delaware for Unsightly Debris".
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